Rask, Bruins Win a Big One in Atlanta

Clinging to a one point lead for the final playoff spot in the East, the Bruins faced their closest competition for that spot last night in Atlanta. Tuukka Rask pitched the shutout as the Bruins roared to a 4-0 win, pushing their lead to three points. Couple that with their win over the Rangers on Sunday, and the playoff picture suddenly looks a lot better for Boston.

Happiness, hope on the diamond – Gordon Edes gets J.D. Drew to talk about as much as anyone has since he’s been in Boston. He recalls making his MLB debut with the Cardinals on the day that Mark McGwire hit home run # 62 in 1998, and talks about his son Jack, who might face more surgery.

On the downside, Jim Donaldson writes today about breakfast with Bill Belichick being like “dry toast” and that the Patriots coach has no “personality”, says he laughed at an out-of-town writer who asked him if Belichick had said anything “revealing”, that Belichick “is nothing like the colorful and quotable ‘Tuna'” (Bill Parcells) and that he approaches press conferences like a “root canal.”

How long has he been the coach here? Is any of this new? In Tom E. Curran’s piece above, he notes that Donaldson was “dominating the proceedings with even longer questions than mine.” Donaldson says he got maybe one morsel of interest from the session, while Curran came away with 10.

Maybe the problem is with you, Jim.

(Funny, in this picture from said event, the dry-toast Belichick is smiling, while I believe that is Donaldson (top left) happily eating his free food.)

Random Quote

I get the impression Donaldson yearns for the days before the horseless carriage and bathing suits that didn’t even reveal ankles. The guy is just wasting office air until retirement.

Tony

The quote about Parcells pretty much sums it all up for most of the media: he treated them like absolute dogs most of the time; he insulted their intelligence on a daily basis; he restricted access to his assistants, like Belichick does (where do you think Belichick learned that from anyway?); and he also would yell insults at them often–but man, he was QUOTABLE. In other words, he may have disliked most of them, but he made their jobs easier because he gave them what they most desire: good soundbites and good print quotes.

Belichick treats these guys with respect, but he doesn’t kiss their butts and he also commits the cardinal sin of not being quotable and not making their jobs easier. That’s simply unforgivable for most of them.

Char

Just a correction: It’s Tuukka, not Tukka.

Two U’s, two K’s, two points. 😉

Bruce

Thanks.

For some crazy reason Tuukka isn’t in my spell-checker’s dictionary…

😉

http://www.jonvssports.blogspot.com Jon

I’m going to bring this up because no one else will:

Is it just entirely possible that people over reacted to the Pittsburgh game last week and the Bruins are much better than what they showed in those excremental 2 and half hours? I’m not saying that they’re good or will make it out of round 1 – I can see the Capitals or Sabres bludgeoning them to death in 4 or 5 games – but they aren’t as awful as that game showed.
It just feels like that the Bruins get more flak for putting up a gutless performance than the Red Sox did for that awful ALDS series against the Angels, the putrid playoff game against the Ravens, and about 20 Celtics games where the C’s couldn’t hold a double digit lead. Huh.

Tony

I think 38 years without a Stanley Cup and 20 years without an appearance in the finals has led to the Bruins having a much, much shorter leash on the fans’ anger than the other three teams, each of which has provided a championship (or two or three) over the last decade alone.

That said, I agree with you that everyone overreacted to the Pittsburgh game, but it was a metaphor that the fans could grasp onto to vent their spleens about what has been a very, very frustrating season, especially coming off a year where it appeared that the Bruins have begun to turn the corner, finally.

Jason Coyote

It was also a metaphor that the local talk show hosts could glom on to so they could have four-hour programs loaded with Bruins callers.

Tony, while I agree that the Bruins might be on a shorter leash than the other three teams, they also have a considerably smaller base of hardcore devoted fans, which is why in the end it’s the media that blew this out of proportion the most.

BTW it’s been nice hearing Bob Neumeier on 98.5 the past couple of mornings. Given that he also popped up on EEI the previous week, I’m wondering if he’s fishing for a local job. Does he still work for NBC? I don’t remember seeing him in Vancouver at all, which surprised me.

Eddie

The huge ratings for the Pittsburg game should re-inforce the theory that fighting is necessary in hockey because it’s so boring.

This morning Dale Arnold described a fight in last night’s game between Thornton and some other goon. He said the other guy “asked” Thornton to fight and then described parts of the fight saying Thornton took it easy on the guy and had the ref stop it when he had the upper hand. Am I the only one who sees that this isn’t a real fight? Shouldn’t somebody be angry in a real fight? This is roller derby.